Born This Way? Race, Desire, and the Compulsion to Match One's Language to One's Longings

The headline in yesterday’s HuffPost reads like a throwback to 2020: Decolonizing My Love Life: What I Learned When I Stopped Dating White Men. For those of you worried that the national media have been so cowed by the Second Trump Administration that they have abandoned all references to race and racism, this Melinda Li essay should be welcome. Black Lives Matter Plaza may be no more. State and local DEI initiatives are being taken down and packed away like Christmas decorations in January. But fear not: even in March 2025, you can still find major media outlets eager to publish calls for “decolonization” and social justice.

Melinda tells a familiar story. From adolescence onward, she dated white men. She wasn’t attracted to AAPI (Asian-American/Pacific Islander) men. After repeated experiences of mistreatment, fetishization, and infidelity by a series of white beaux, Melinda had an epiphany: “My ‘type’ wasn’t just a preference: It was an algorithm shaped by media and colonial history. If my brain could be trained to prioritize whiteness, it could be retrained to desire something else.”

Melinda “decolonized” her brain with a three-step strategy, following instructions she heard on a podcast:

1. Bombard your brain with images of hot men of color.

2. Be suspicious of white men. Is he actually hot or does he just take regular showers and wear cool glasses?

3. Swipe left on white men.

Her efforts rewarded and her brain suitably rewired, Melinda found her current partner, an unnamed son of Pakistani immigrants. There’s considerable literal and cultural real estate that separates Pakistan from China (the homeland of Melinda Li’s ancestors), but it is evidently of little account.

With him, I no longer feel the pressure to shrink, dilute or translate my culture to make it more palatable. There’s no need for exhaustive explanations — why my relationship with my parents is fraught, why they insist he sleep in the guest room when visiting, why I instinctively modulate my behavior around them.

Is it uncharitable to point out that if her previous boyfriends required “exhaustive explanations” for why they needed to sleep in the guest room when visiting, the problem was less their whiteness than their lack of manners? A gentleman of any background adapts to the expectations of his hosts. I’ve dated women whose families insisted on separating unmarried couples at bedtime, and I’ve dated women whose parents cheerfully permitted us the same room, replete with embarrassing warnings about creaky bed springs. A gentleman pivots without complaint, and without demands for explanations. Truculence and entitlement are not inherent in whiteness. Rudeness is a function of a lack of training, a failure of empathy, and the absence of curiosity. These defects are found everywhere.

My first wife was half-Chinese/half-Filipino; my fourth wife’s mother was Afro-Colombian; my third wife’s mother grew up in a trailer and prattled on about Edgar Cayce and akashic records. I’ve dated women whose names were in the Social Register, and I’ve dated women who grew up in abject poverty, and I’ve dated (and sometimes married) women from almost every racial background. I made many mistakes in these relationships. I was not a very good partner much of the time. I am, though, quite confident that my failings were due to a combination of insecurity, addiction, and brain injury – and not white privilege.

I am glad Melinda Li is happy. I do not begrudge anyone the chance to break a cycle. If you find yourself always attracted to abusive partners, it is wonderful if you can reprogram your libido and your heart to be drawn to kind, honest, and gentle folks. If you find yourself fetishizing one particular race, or one particular body type, you might well want to “interrogate” that for the sake of your own happiness. On the other hand, I’m deeply suspicious of any effort to transform one’s desires for the sake of an ideological project.

To pick an obvious example: age-gaps. Let us say you are a young woman who has always been attracted to much older men. Let us say that in your case, you are aware that this is bound up with father loss. You realize that your pursuit of older dudes is primarily about a search for the dad you never had. You do some therapeutic and spiritual work to heal that father wound and discover that you are now attracted to fellows your own age. Hurrah! BUT – let us suppose you are a different young woman who has a great relationship with your own father. You love your (very present) dad, and he loves you, and there is no trauma there. And yet, you are still drawn to older men. It’s not about looking for a father figure – it’s simply a sexual preference rooted in any number of factors that have nothing to do with your papa.

Your friends tell you that you have “daddy issues,” but you know that you don’t. Other women tell you that your decision to pursue older men is somehow unfeminist. Perhaps you have an ideological obligation to train yourself out of this attraction. Perhaps you should go to the Melinda Li playbook. Commit to not “swiping” on anyone more than a year older than you are and try to convince yourself that any older dude interested in you is emotionally stunted, if not downright predatory. Tell yourself that gray hair is always repulsive, and that you don’t want to end up being anyone’s nurse. Challenge yourself not to watch any movies with Jeremy Irons or George Clooney. When it gets really hard, remind your libido that self-denial is a blow against the patriarchy. Start watching college men’s water polo on ESPNU.

It is true that pop culture helps shape our desires. If you believe that our society is racist to its core, then you will imagine that racism has formed your notion of what is attractive. You are welcome to try to alter that. You may find, however, that desire is not merely a product of cultural influence, nor even of early childhood experience. You’d be hard-pressed to find any serious contemporary student of human psychology who believes that we are born as blank slates. We are not merely products of our environments. Much of what drives us is as much nature as it is nurture, as much encoded in our unique identities as it is inscribed by society. The left has fought for years against Christian conversion therapy, arguing that it is immoral and irresponsible to try to help people with same-sex attraction become “straight.” But what is conversion therapy other than theologically motivated interrogation of one’s desires?

One of the great queer anthems of the 21^st century — ubiquitous at Pride events — is Lady Gaga’s Born This Way. The title and lyrics make a very clear case that some longings are both God-given and immutable:

I'm beautiful in my way
'Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way

Don't hide yourself in regret
Just love yourself and you're set
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way

Icon of affirmation, not interrogation

Surely it stretches both credulity and common sense to say, “Being same-sex attracted is innate and you cannot ever change it, but being attracted to primarily to white men (or older men, or tall men) is entirely a consequence of marinating in – checking my notes -- racist patriarchy.”

When people are in love or its nearest approximation, they will declare that “the heart wants what it wants.” (An ancient sentiment, even if we associate it today with Woody Allen or Selena Gomez). We can tell them that their heart should not want what it wants, but as most of us know, our expressions of disproval are not very convincing. We can tell them that their desires are not Godly. We can tell them that their desires are rooted in childhood trauma. We can tell them that their desires are manifestations of a pornified, misogynistic culture. The chances their hearts and other parts will hear us? Pretty damn minimal. The best we can do is affirm the want, and if it is truly toxic or criminal -- or merely certain to end in tears – we can offer verbal redirection. And if, after yet another heartbreak, our friend declares an interest in decolonizing their desires? We can and should affirm that too -- perhaps offering a gentle warning about the danger of imagining that our deepest cravings are mutable.

It is not easy to match one’s libido to one’s desired life, and at some point, the kinder and more generous choice is to stop trying.